Tennis’ Grand Slams are attempting to partner with a collection of the sport’s other prominent tournaments in what could be the game’s most revolutionary change since the 1990s.
Their goal, according to five people who were both involved and briefed on those discussions, is to form a partnership with at least the 10 biggest tournaments and their own events — Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open — to create a premium tour that resembles tennis’ version of Formula 1.
The move comes as the sport’s most powerful entities, executives and top players accept that tennis in its current form is not working nearly as well as it should. Among their criticisms: it’s confusing for fans to follow; hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue were left on the table; its almost never-ending schedule invalidates top players, whose careers are cut short by injury and mental fatigue.
Those factors, officials worry, have left tennis susceptible to the kind of aggressive delay that has plagued golf for the past two seasons, as the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf venture pulled out of top players from the established PGA Tour and led to an expensive legal battle that forced a merger whose details are still being worked out. Preventing similar incidents has been a top priority for the seven governing bodies that oversee tennis and bbrings together the most important and most recognizable properties in the sport to create an elite collection of events and a simplified season is widely seen as the best defense.
Coco Gauff celebrates her 2023 US Open win. Under a new tour, he may choose to play a little (Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“We all know the premium drives the business,” Steve Simon, the chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour, said in an interview on Tuesday.
During a week in Turin, Italy, earlier this month, top tennis officials eagerly awaited the proposal from the sport’s biggest and most powerful entity following about six months of debate and discussion. The organizations that run the four Grand Slam tournaments have come together in a rare unity.
Some of those officials interviewed for this story asked not to be identified to avoid jeopardizing their professional relationships.
In the end, officials along with other governing bodies left Turin, the site of the men’s ATP Tour (Association of Tennis Professionals) finals, without getting the long-awaited proposal. Executives with the Grand Slams, who declined to comment publicly for this article or did not respond to messages seeking comment, told officials with the men’s and women’s tours that they needed more time to finish their proposal. The aim is to have a plan ready to present when the sport gathers in Australia in January for the Australian Open.
In in a sign of how serious the slams are about forcing change, they have yet to sign the next three-year deal with the tours that codifies the ranking points system. That move signals their view that a significant change is imminent, so signing a multi-year deal based on the current schedule makes no sense, even if that means starting the 2024 season without a deal.
Executives involved in the discussions described them as fluid and largely positive. All told there’s a good chance they’ll be broken, or the premium tour could expand to include more than the Grand Slams, the top level events, and a few others deemed worthy. In recent years, tennis executives have teamed up with leading consulting and investment firms that have floated proposals similar to the one now being considered, but have failed to move tennis beyond its status quo. .
A more focused, premium tour partially controlled by the Grand Slams could also protect them against significant schedule changes leading up to their events. In recent months, this has been a major concern for Craig Tiley, the chief executive of Tennis Australia, as the men’s and women’s tours consider adding a top-level event in Saudi Arabia in the first week of season, starting in January 2025.
A top-level event in January in Saudi Arabia is likely to spoil the series of tournaments across Australia and New Zealand which, along with the Australian Open, form the first swing of the year. It could also spell the end of the United Cup, a mixed-team event launched by Tennis Australia last year.
The plan for a premium tour made up of slams aligns, at least in theory, with one of the top goals of Andrea Gaudenzi, the ATP Tour’s chief executive.
Gaudenzi has long wanted to close the gaps in prestige, import and financial power between the Grand Slams and the biggest events on the men’s and women’s tours. These are often referred to by the men’s tour as the “Masters” events and the women’s tour as “the 1,000s” — for the number of ranking points women receive.
Medvedev defeated Sinner in this year’s Miami final (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Those tournaments include mixed events in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Toronto/Montreal, and nearby Cincinnati. More than half of the top events were extended to 12 days from one week, compared to two weeks for the Grand Slams.
“We want to increase our premium product and that is a fact that our voice is very strong,” said Gaudenzi in a meeting with a small group of journalists in Turin two weeks ago. “For the sport, closing the gap between Masters and slams is good for everyone. Now, there’s a huge gap.”
While Gaudenzi and the slams may share a vision of what’s best for tennis, it’s unclear what role she, her WTA Tour counterpart Simon, or the tours themselves will play moving forward. They can be left to oversee a collection of small and medium-sized tournaments, known as 500s and 250s. Under one scenario, developing players can make the most of those events’ fields, while players ranked in the top 100, who can get a “tour card” good for the season and a defined guaranteed salary, focus on the top-level tour but are still able to participate in smaller events if they choose.
A key question, says Simon, is, “How do you make a calendar easier to follow?”
Players who have begun to learn the details of the plan trying to formulate slams are generally supportive of the concept, especially those involved in the Professional Tennis Players Association, the player organization Novak Djokovic helped launch three years ago. that was a while ago.
Tennis players play the longest season in professional sports. Among their biggest priorities is to earn more money while having to compete less, so they can rest and maintain their health. A premium tour could achieve both goals and produce a more simplified version of the sport than the one that widely exists today.
Iga Swiatek dominates the French Open (Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
If the top 100 players had to focus mainly on slams and about a dozen top-level tournaments, that would add up to about 32 weeks of competition and leave enough time for them to play a few more small events, where they can receive lucrative appearance fees. , while also keeping enough time for rest and a proper off-season.
Sports executives say revenues are likely to increase if the slams and top tournaments can sell their television rights and sponsorships more collectively, rather than driving the market by competing against each other, even though the partnership structure has not yet been finalized. It may not include all commercial rights for all tournaments, officials said.
The changes will likely take at least a year or two to begin and longer than that to fully take effect as executives work to relax or renegotiate long-term media and sponsorship deals and to figure out how to split the profits between the top-level tours and the other tournaments.
(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
